


fire chase my chills away

by Yuu_chi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to unspecific but damaging Stormtrooper training, Touch starved Finn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:39:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuu_chi/pseuds/Yuu_chi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn wants to learn how to be a person, but it is so, so much harder than he'd thought. </p><p>It is a good thing, then, that Poe is a patient teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fire chase my chills away

Finn dreams of the forest.

He dreams of Rey’s weight settled on his chest and of Poe’s jacket smoldering on his back and even though he knows it’s a dream, knows that he does not stay in that forest forever, he dreams that he never opens his eyes.

Rey keeps crying and his eyelashes are heavy on his cheeks and he can smell his own skin burning and he thinks _oh this is it – this is all the world had to offer me; two people to love and leave and a death that will take me slowly._

And his breath catches and catches and _catches_ until there is no more breath to take. And then, only then, does he wake up gasping.

He claws at his chest, whistling through his teeth so desperately for air that his lungs rattle with it. His vision swims between dirty walls and snow blanketed darkness for long, heavy minutes. Eventually though, he realizes where he is and where he is not and he can _breathe_.

He dreams of the forest often and each night it takes him far too long to truly leave it.

Poe snuffles across the room and Finn freezes for a moment, hands still at his throat where he’d nearly sunk his nails into the skin, but Poe does nothing but sigh and roll over, seemingly taken quickly by sleep.

Finn is terribly, horribly glad. He’s woken Poe more than once with his nightmares, and even though he knows Poe likes it that way, likes to be able to hold Finn’s shoulders and coax him back to reality as he shakes, Finn is not nearly accustomed enough to that selfless affection.

Slowly he swings his legs over the side of the bed and it groans beneath him. He spares one more glance towards Poe and he can see the soft, sleepy flutter of his eyelashes, the _o_ of his mouth as he breathes quietly, evenly and confidently. Like this, he looks so terrifyingly young, nothing of the cocky wit that creeps into the corners of his lips when he’s awake.

Finn likes it. He likes that Poe can have these moments of peace, and he likes the fact that he trusts Finn enough to drop so easily and carelessly to sleep with him all but two meters away.

He likes that trust a lot. _A lot_.

He leaves the room – but not before pausing to check that Poe has the blankets pulled high enough about his shoulders – and steps cautiously out into the quiet hallway. The Alliance base is busy often and cramped always. There are too many recruits and not enough space, not enough safety, and they sleep two or more to a room.

Poe had offered his room to Finn his first night at the base and out of medbay. He’d done it with an easy, honest smile and a burning hand on his shoulder. _There’s still an empty bunk or two with me_ , he’d said in a voice that warmed the chills in Finn’s bones, _and you could have one, if you’d like._

Finn had, of course, liked that very much. They kept the other bunk for Rey even though nobody could say when – _if_ – she’d be coming back. Nobody has come asking for it yet and it makes Finn feel better to imagine Rey staying there with them, his two favourite people crammed together with him in a space too small.

(he’d been a Stormtrooper after all, and although he was more than used to shared sleeping quarters and bunks that pushed at the wall, he’d never realized he was allowed to _enjoy_ the company of the people he shared the space with.)

It’s a tired night for everybody, and although Finn passes the occasional restless walker or guards leaning exhausted but firm at their posts nobody takes even a moment to notice him. He’s another empty faced recruit, not one of the heroes of the battle against Kylo Ren, and Finn finds himself grateful for anonymity.

(yet another thing about being a Stormtrooper: they were one continuous blank canvas. They were not individuals, but cogs functioning as a whole. The bland armor served as more than just a shield to their skin, it stripped them all of individualism, did not allow for any one victory to belong to a single soldier. This hive mind mentality is something Poe has been encouraging him to shake, and Finn is trying, really, but a life of brain washing and discipline cannot be so easily eroded away.)

He’s recognized sometimes, still, and it always makes him uncomfortable. It makes him wish Rey were there, because she’s a lot better at rolling with these things than he is. Poe doesn’t bask in it, but he accepts compliments and congratulations with a baffling ease.

He used to try and drag Finn in too, to get him the credit he felt was due, but he’d picked up quickly on Finn’s distress and has since taken to running interference for him when anybody gave a sign of approaching.

Still, like this, there is nobody he needs to hide from and he tells himself firmly that he does not miss the heat of Poe at his side.

He’s in a broad common area littered with benches and domed by curving glass windows, and Finn’s so distracted staring out at the stars and imagining which one Rey is on, which ones Poe has seen, that it takes him a moment to realize he’s not alone.

“Finn, isn’t it?”

He jumps – he’d always been much too easily startled, and he’d have been a _terrible_ Stormtrooper – and he trips over himself spinning around to see the speaker.

General Organa smiles at him. She’s sitting at one of the benches by the window without a single trace of sleep to her.

“Princess – I mean, General.” Finn wonders if he should bow. Poe had told him that General Organa was a pleasant, friendly woman but Finn is still slightly terrified of her.

“Be at ease,” she laughs, patting at the bench beside her. “You look like you could use some company.”

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” Finn says awkwardly.

“If you were imposing, recruit,” she says with a barely suppressed twitch at her lips, “I’d certainly let you know, believe me.”

Finn does believe her. He believes her very much. He takes the seat.

“Trouble sleeping?” She asks, and although the question is expected and her voice soft Finn is still thrown back to the forest.

( - _on his back, skin seared and ripped, snow wet, Rey crying, Poe somewhere without them, and he’s –.)_

“No,” Finn says, and he manages to sound only the slightest bit winded. “It’s – it’s too warm to sleep.”

It’s most certainly not, but General Organa does nothing more than raise an eyebrow at him for the remark. “You’re sharing quarters with Poe, yes?”

“That’s right, ma’am.”

She smiles at him. “He’s a good pilot.”

Finn grins a little. “Yes, he is.”

Her smile does not leave her face but her eyes flick to his. “And a good man, too.”

Finn’s grin wavers a little, because while he could not agree more, there’s a presence there in-between her words that thickens the air between them. “Yes,” he says, slightly cautious. “Yes, he is.”

“He’s quite fond of you,” she says, smoothing down the creases in her trousers, and her disinterest in Finn’s face is obvious and feigned but Finn appreciates it all the same because his cheeks feel hot and his eyes wide. “He was one of the loudest voices to defend you against anybody saying you might be a spy, did you know that?”

Finn did not. He’d known what people had said about him – once a Stormtrooper, always a Stormtrooper – but he hadn’t known that Poe had been his first line of defense. He shouldn’t be surprised, but he is, not necessarily unpleasantly so because it is a delighted little shiver in his hands, but surprised all the same.

“He was in and out of medbay almost more than some of the patients when you were there,” General Organa adds, still coolly disinterested.

Finn stares at his feet. “Yes, I –  I know. I told him I was fine, but he’s very stubborn.”

The General laughs. “He is, isn’t he? Not a bad trait for a pilot, I’ve been given to understand.”

There’s an ache to her words suddenly that prickles at Finn. She looks perfectly put together still, but Finn is extra sensitive these days to the tremors and dips at the edge of a voice. He’s looking for it, always, with Poe and Rey and – and _had_ with Solo.

It is possibly not his place to ask, but since he’d left the First Order a dam has broken in Finn and he’s bubbling over with too much worry and affection and nowhere to place it all, so he can’t stop himself from saying, “I’m sorry General, I don’t mean to pry but – are you alright?”

General Organa stills. For a second Finn worries that he _has_ said the wrong thing. And then her eyes close and she laughs. When she speaks next there is a tired tenor in her voice that sounds as old as the planet they’re calling home. “I am a sister without a brother, a mother without a son, and now I have become a wife without a husband.” She opens her eyes and she quite suddenly looks every one of her many years. “So no, I am not alright, but I plan to be. Soon. Soon.”

There is nothing Finn feels he can say to that. Her loss – her _losses_ – are still so fresh and the wounds so raw, and to try and offer her an empathy he could not in truth feel would be a disservice to both of them.

They sit for a moment, and Finn makes a bit of a show of looking out the window. He hears the General take in a deep, steadying breath and when he looks back at her she is once again perfectly poised.

“Thank you for your concern,” she says, and her words are diplomatic but she reaches out to gently squeeze his arm and that softens it somewhat. “And for your company.”

(Finn tries not to be too obvious in the way he stiffens at the touch, but she pulls away much too quickly for him to think it had gone unnoticed.

He wishes he were a better liar.)

“Now,” she says, getting to her feet and dusting her spotless pants clean, “it’s gotten far too late and I have a rebellion to run and, if I’m not mistaken, you have a roommate who might work himself up somewhat if he awakens to an empty room.”

She offers him a final smile, friendly but distant enough to be professional and Finn watches her walk away quietly and he’s left alone in the star painted silence. He does not stay long after that, because although he’d left the room to find air, he finds that the solitude makes him ill.

Poe is exactly as he left him save for an arm that has come to rest by his head as he sleeps and a blanket that has slipped just a tad too low.

Finn sighs and pulls it higher as gently as he can, but as he goes to settle it on his shoulders his fingers brush against Poe’s uncurled palm.

The touch is nothing more than a coincidental grazing of skin, but it is burning hot and Finn flinches away on reflex. Poe huffs a little in his sleep, but does not wake and Finn cradles his hand close to his chest and stares.

There are a lot of things Finn lacks in his life and he finds that words are one of them. He does not have anything to describe the way Poe looks right now – bright, maybe. So very bright for all that the room is dark. He shines when Finn looks at him.

With agonizing slowness Finn reaches down and although he feels like he may be shaking he touches his fingertips into the creases of Poe’s hand. It’s hot, burning hot, and he shudders unpleasantly, wants to draw back, away from this sudden heat, but he persists.

After a moment the feeling eases slightly, and although it does not _leave,_ it weakens. Like this Finn is able to feel that although Poe’s skin is warm it does not burn him, and he’d known, of course, that it _wouldn’t,_ but touches that are not born of violence do not come easy to a Stormtrooper and there is a part of Finn that is and always will be one.

Slowly he spreads his fingers out until his palm trembles against Poe’s, barely touching at all.

 _Hot,_ he thinks dazedly, _hot and hungry_.

Although Finn is afraid of the way this feels, is unused to the ease of skin on skin, _not_ wanting to touch Poe has never been the problem. Part of the problem, he thinks, is that he wants to touch _too much_ and yet he does not know _how_.

Finn has spent an entire life devoid of this kind of pointless affection, and he wants it so terrifyingly bad but he does not know what is Permitted, what is Allowed.

He presses down on Poe’s hand and the heat sears back at him.

Finn pulls away and yes, yes he is shaking.

He goes to bed and although he’s scared of returning to the icy floor of the forest he presses the spark he’d stolen from Poe against the unsteady galloping of his heart and no he cannot sleep, but the heat keeps the snow away and that is enough for now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> so I saw the new movie tonight. first thing I do when I get home is start writing in a mad rush, of course.


End file.
